View from the ‘Bridge

This is the first installment in the series, The Future of Voting in Massachusetts.

With the primaries out of the way and Democrats united behind Deval Patrick against Kerry Healey, so much attention is being paid to whether that party can bring an end to nearly two decades of Republican gubernatorial control in Massachusetts. This is a partisan battle we are all accustomed to under the U.S. two-party political system. Republicans and Democrats face off for power in every state in the Union.

Ignore for the moment the fact that in some states, like Massachusetts, one party often has a disproportionately large amount of control. The basic point is that, as a Progressive, I always find myself in the position where I’m appalled and frustrated with how much money controls the Democratic Party. Of course, because of fundamental differences in core values, I could never vote for the Republican as an alternative, even the “moderate” ones we have here in Massachusetts.

I could always vote for a third-party like the Greens because, in all honesty, I agree with every single “key value” they stand for. Unfortunately, we’ve seen how effective that party has been. Since Able Lincoln became the first Republican President, no other minor party has done very well. Even the oldest third party, the Libertarian Party, has had a pretty hard time garnering any really power in U.S. politics. Because of the fundamental structure of the U.S. election system, which feeds the power of the Democrats and Republicans, third parties are relegated to spoiler status.

But the spoiler election system is not the only possibility. When I was a high schooler, growing up in Minnesota, I became interested in a fledgling group called the New Party that endorsed my dad’s first successful campaign for St. Paul City Council in 1997. The Twin Cities Area New Party was a local affiliate of the national New Party, an aptly named new political party that worked to advance the cause of “fusion voting.” This old but generally abandoned way of conducting elections was to move beyond spoiler-systems and allow voters to choose candidates that truly reflected their values without being forced to settle for the best of two evils or vote for a third-party candidate which would just propel Republicans to victory.

Under fusion voting, otherwise called cross-endorsing, candidates can be listed on a ballot more than once, as the official general election candidate on the ballot-line of multiple parties. Voters can then chose under which party they wish to vote for a candidate. All the votes a candidate receives are counted together, and results are tabulated in regards to the percentage and number of votes under each ballot line.

The benefit of this system is that, according to the New Majority Fund:

Fusion allows minor parties to demonstrate in clear, measurable terms, the level of support they provide to a candidate, thus giving them greater influence with candidates, elected officials and major political parties in policy and legislative matters.

In the case of the New Party the plan was to support progressive Democrats who advocated for their platform of bread-and-butter working class issues like jobs, health care, education, and housing. The progressive Dems would benefit by having enough votes to actually win a general election, and the New Party would be engaging in winning politics – obviously a great way to build a strong following. In some ways fusion is like a parliamentary system in that it forces coalitions between political parties in order to be able to govern, although the coalition would be build during elections rather than the legislative halls.

The New Party had membership all over the country. I was a member in Minnesota but there were other local chapters of various local influences around the country in places like Maryland, Wisconsin, New York and here in Massachusetts.

Ultimately the national strategy did not work when in 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states are constitutional entitled to ban fusion voting if their legislatures or voters so chose. As a fledgling movement the New Party lacked the resources to continue in states that currently banned fusion, and activists became focused on creating organizations that could successfully use cross-endorsing within the seven states that it was still legal.

New York State has the most active fusion system in the country that, over the years, has been successfully used by influential statewide groups like the Conservative Party. Currently, leaders of the former New Party remain active in the Working Families Party of New York (WFP) which is not only the most successful third party in that state, but perhaps the strongest fusion-driven party in the nation. Fusion is also widely used in Connecticut; rarely-used but legal in Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, and of course, Vermont.

This year, Massachusetts is the first front in a new tactic to use statewide ballot initiatives in order to legalize fusion in a state where it is currently banned. Labor Unions, community based organizations and individuals from around Massachusetts have created a coalition called Mass Ballot Freedom to campaign for the passage of Ballot Question 2, a measure on this November’s general election ballot which would begin fusion voting in Massachusetts. Forty-four organizations have endorsed the initiative including a large number of union locals and community groups like Centro Presente, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, and the Progressive Democrats of America.

This series, The Future of Voting in Massachusetts, continues with Part II: YES on Question 2.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 9:36 am and is filed under Ballot Question 2, Fusion Voting, Third Parties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.